Comments on: “An abomination in the eyes of sportsmen”: The early days of professional footballhttp://blog.nyhistory.org/the-early-days-of-professional-football/
Wed, 14 Mar 2018 01:01:45 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5By: Michael Moranhttp://blog.nyhistory.org/the-early-days-of-professional-football/#comment-21357
Tue, 04 Feb 2014 21:14:47 +0000http://blog.nyhistory.org/?p=9227#comment-21357My father, Hap Moran, played on the Giants in 1931 and I have a number of photos from the Polo Grounds in the 1930s on my website http://www.hapmoran.org

On Dec 4, 1921 Jim Thorpe’s Cleveland Tiger’s played Charlie Brickley’s Giants (a team which folded after one year – not related to the Maras NY Giants) at the Polo Grounds. The NY Times reported a small crowd. There is a famous photo of Thorpe and Brickley having a kicking contest at half time.

The lack of people in the stands in your 1931 photo looks more like a pro game of that era than a college game. One of the way the pro game tried to prove itself against the college game was in December 1930 when the Giants played a team of Notre Dame All Stars at the Polo Grounds – the story with photos is also on my website. Thanks for a great post – Mike Moran

]]>By: Before The Super Bowl, A Look At A Parallel Between Ultimate And Football | Bama Secshttp://blog.nyhistory.org/the-early-days-of-professional-football/#comment-21265
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:19:32 +0000http://blog.nyhistory.org/?p=9227#comment-21265[…] help but notice some parallels between the two sports this morning, however, when I read this story by the New York Historical Society regarding the early days of professional football in America. Specifically as the story pertains to […]
]]>By: The BUZZ: Christie Brinkley Turning 60; David Stern Did the Top 10 on Letterman; LeBron James Said “Retarded” to Reporters Question; | The News Sports Guruhttp://blog.nyhistory.org/the-early-days-of-professional-football/#comment-21263
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:51:06 +0000http://blog.nyhistory.org/?p=9227#comment-21263[…] A look back at very, very early professional football. [New York Historical Society] […]
]]>By: Roundup: LeBron James Said “Retarded,” Full House Reunion, Christie Brinkley Turning 60 | The Big Leadhttp://blog.nyhistory.org/the-early-days-of-professional-football/#comment-21262
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:43:12 +0000http://blog.nyhistory.org/?p=9227#comment-21262[…] A look back at very, very early professional football. [New York Historical Society] […]
]]>By: Eric Poolehttp://blog.nyhistory.org/the-early-days-of-professional-football/#comment-21257
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 05:59:14 +0000http://blog.nyhistory.org/?p=9227#comment-21257The late Bob Carroll, co-author of “The Hidden Game of Football” and former executive director of the Pro Football Researchers’ Association (I judged the association’s annual writing contest for several years running while Carroll was still alive and am now author of the upcoming book “In The Jungles of Vietnam,” to be released this year by Osprey Publishing) said many Pittsburgh (then Pittsburg)-area teams dodged amateur rules through imaginative ways like giving players watches for gifts.

The player would take his watch to a cooperating pawn broker, and get his money while returning the pawn ticket to the team manager. After the next game, the player would get the very same watch. It’s doubtful that Heffelfinger was the first pro football player – he was merely the first DOCUMENTED pro football player.

College football was, by far the more popular version of the sport into the 1950s (the Baltimore Colts’ 1958 NFL Championship overtime game victory over the New York Giants is generally regarded by most football historians as being the moment that pro football began to overtake college football in the hearts of American sports fans.

However, most knowledgeable observers had already accepted years earlier that the pros played a better quality of football. An early 1930s game in which the Giants, led by Benny Friedman – probably the NFL’s first great quarterback – hammered a Knute Rockne-coached Notre Dame squad drove that point home.